A big topic in my school district this year is that they want K-4 teachers to integrate science and social studies with their ELA (English Language Arts) curriculum. And I have a problem with that, but not for the reasons you would expect.
My district took science and social studies out of our day completely.
You heard that correctly. We no longer have a time slot to teach science or social studies. What does my day look like then? 180 minutes of ELA, 120 minutes of math, 40 minutes of prep, 40 minutes for WIN time (What I Need which is our Tier/RTI time), 30 minutes of lunch, and 10 minutes of breakfast. That's all 420 minutes in our school day. And I have a problem with it.
They say that our ELA curriculum integrates science and social studies in with the reading we will be doing, but honestly? I don't think it's enough. If we want students to gain real-world skills in school then we need them problem solving and only doing that during math class isn't going to cut it. So I have a plan and it's brilliant. I'm going to integrate ELA into science.
But that's what they're trying to tell you is happening in your new curriculum Lauren! Yes, however the way I'm going to integrate the two curriculums is different because I'm going to use science based texts that are not in my students' reading books. I'm going to use other texts that speak to the science concepts I am supposed to be teaching and then we're going to do some problem-based assessments and learning.
How you ask? I'm going to use my favorite thing in the world that integrates science, ELA, and sometimes social studies together for this. CERs. Claim-Evidence-Research projects are the perfect way to integrate science, social studies, and ELA together. And my favorite assessment project to do with this? An infographic. An infographic is a poster with pictures and words that details a problem and how to solve it. It gives information rapidly to its audience and I have to tell you that kids love making these. Why? Because they love to be artistic and if you hadn't noticed, other than having art as a prep most kids don't get to be artistic in class anymore. This is a way to get students learning about different topics and showing their knowledge in a fun way.
Now I know what you're thinking. Why not just keep it how the status quo is? If you know me I can't just keep it at the status quo. My heart loves science and social studies. I love being able to do fun projects and learning activities with my students. Being told there's no time for it in my day breaks my heart. This is why I do mini projects like this to keep my kids excited about science.
So how am I going to use it in my classroom this year? I'm so glad you asked! Our first unit has always been energy. I found this energy bundle of texts Energy Science Unit Reading Passages and Activities at Teachers Pay Teachers and bought it about two years ago. These passages are phenomenal. They're short and sweet, explaining the basics of several different kinds of energy and they each have 2-3 questions at the end of the passages. They're awesome for a super quick lesson and grade. My kids loved these! So to start, we read each of these about the different forms of energy. Then I have students do a CER on one type of energy. They answer all of these questions I have on a sheet for them (sorry no link today because it's at school). Then we get to the fun part.
After my students have done their research we talk about different ways they could present their information about their forms of energy to the class. I divide them into groups based on the type of energy they researched and then we talk about infographics. Here are a few that I may use this coming year when we talk about energy and infographics:
This comes from cleantechnica.com.
This comes from quickinfoplanet.blogspot.com.
This comes from inhabitat.com.
This comes from lindseynicholson.org.
All four of these would be good starting points where I could show my students that they all have information on their topics and how it explains different kinds of energy in different ways. This would give students a visual of what an infographic is. Now do I expect them to look like this? Goodness no! But paired with my rubric I know my students can easily achieve a high grade. Here is what my rubric looks like: C:\Users\nate\Desktop\Infographic Rubric.mht (you will need to copy and paste to view this link). Once students have created their infographics they will present them to the class as I grade them. It's a simple but an effective way to pair reading and science together in a fun way for students.
I can't wait to use this lesson this year in my classroom! Have you ever used infographics in your classroom? Do you have any tips to make them more effective? Let me know in the comments because I always love hearing what other teachers think of them!
References
Nicholson, L. (2012). Energy infographic. Retrieved from http://lindseynicholson.org/2012/09/energy-infographic/.
Visualistan. (2017). Household energy consumption in England and Wales falls [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.visualistan.com/2014/01/household-energy-consumption-in-england-and-wales-falls-infographic.html.
Vorrath, S. (2013). Graph: Australian wind farms break record. Retrieved from https://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/05/graph-australian-wind-farms-break-record/.
Wood, R. (2014). Infographic: How to save energy on lighting. Retrieved from https://inhabitat.com/infographic-how-to-save-energy-on-lighting/.
My district took science and social studies out of our day completely.
You heard that correctly. We no longer have a time slot to teach science or social studies. What does my day look like then? 180 minutes of ELA, 120 minutes of math, 40 minutes of prep, 40 minutes for WIN time (What I Need which is our Tier/RTI time), 30 minutes of lunch, and 10 minutes of breakfast. That's all 420 minutes in our school day. And I have a problem with it.
They say that our ELA curriculum integrates science and social studies in with the reading we will be doing, but honestly? I don't think it's enough. If we want students to gain real-world skills in school then we need them problem solving and only doing that during math class isn't going to cut it. So I have a plan and it's brilliant. I'm going to integrate ELA into science.
But that's what they're trying to tell you is happening in your new curriculum Lauren! Yes, however the way I'm going to integrate the two curriculums is different because I'm going to use science based texts that are not in my students' reading books. I'm going to use other texts that speak to the science concepts I am supposed to be teaching and then we're going to do some problem-based assessments and learning.
How you ask? I'm going to use my favorite thing in the world that integrates science, ELA, and sometimes social studies together for this. CERs. Claim-Evidence-Research projects are the perfect way to integrate science, social studies, and ELA together. And my favorite assessment project to do with this? An infographic. An infographic is a poster with pictures and words that details a problem and how to solve it. It gives information rapidly to its audience and I have to tell you that kids love making these. Why? Because they love to be artistic and if you hadn't noticed, other than having art as a prep most kids don't get to be artistic in class anymore. This is a way to get students learning about different topics and showing their knowledge in a fun way.
Now I know what you're thinking. Why not just keep it how the status quo is? If you know me I can't just keep it at the status quo. My heart loves science and social studies. I love being able to do fun projects and learning activities with my students. Being told there's no time for it in my day breaks my heart. This is why I do mini projects like this to keep my kids excited about science.
So how am I going to use it in my classroom this year? I'm so glad you asked! Our first unit has always been energy. I found this energy bundle of texts Energy Science Unit Reading Passages and Activities at Teachers Pay Teachers and bought it about two years ago. These passages are phenomenal. They're short and sweet, explaining the basics of several different kinds of energy and they each have 2-3 questions at the end of the passages. They're awesome for a super quick lesson and grade. My kids loved these! So to start, we read each of these about the different forms of energy. Then I have students do a CER on one type of energy. They answer all of these questions I have on a sheet for them (sorry no link today because it's at school). Then we get to the fun part.
After my students have done their research we talk about different ways they could present their information about their forms of energy to the class. I divide them into groups based on the type of energy they researched and then we talk about infographics. Here are a few that I may use this coming year when we talk about energy and infographics:
This comes from lindseynicholson.org.
All four of these would be good starting points where I could show my students that they all have information on their topics and how it explains different kinds of energy in different ways. This would give students a visual of what an infographic is. Now do I expect them to look like this? Goodness no! But paired with my rubric I know my students can easily achieve a high grade. Here is what my rubric looks like: C:\Users\nate\Desktop\Infographic Rubric.mht (you will need to copy and paste to view this link). Once students have created their infographics they will present them to the class as I grade them. It's a simple but an effective way to pair reading and science together in a fun way for students.
I can't wait to use this lesson this year in my classroom! Have you ever used infographics in your classroom? Do you have any tips to make them more effective? Let me know in the comments because I always love hearing what other teachers think of them!
References
Nicholson, L. (2012). Energy infographic. Retrieved from http://lindseynicholson.org/2012/09/energy-infographic/.
Visualistan. (2017). Household energy consumption in England and Wales falls [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.visualistan.com/2014/01/household-energy-consumption-in-england-and-wales-falls-infographic.html.
Vorrath, S. (2013). Graph: Australian wind farms break record. Retrieved from https://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/05/graph-australian-wind-farms-break-record/.
Wood, R. (2014). Infographic: How to save energy on lighting. Retrieved from https://inhabitat.com/infographic-how-to-save-energy-on-lighting/.
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